


A Monster, Am I?

by Gaysuke_Takahashi



Category: Initial D
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Basically characters from IniD are Ghouls from Tokyo Ghoul, Blood and Violence, Established Relationship, Keikumi is the established one, M/M, Mentions of Death, Minor Character Death, author doesn't know how to tag, characters are added as story progresses, don't know how graphic violence counts as graphic, is a given, ratings can change in the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaysuke_Takahashi/pseuds/Gaysuke_Takahashi
Summary: What could go wrong with going out on a walk with the woman your brother is encaged to?A lot, mostly pain and death, as Gou thought. Yet, the people at Fujiwara Coffee Shop aren't what he expected ghouls to be like.I was originally planning to finish the fic before posting, but ran out of motivation. Maybe publishing this wip will help :3
Relationships: Fujiwara Takumi/Takahashi Keisuke, Hojo Gou/Takahashi Ryousuke
Kudos: 6





	1. Prologue

“You know, Gou,” Kaori began as the two walked down a street late at night, “I have no idea what your brother might have told you about me, but I can’t marry him…” her voice trailed off.

“Huh? That came out of the blue!” Gou stopped in his tracks, which forced Kaori to stop and turn around. “Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t you be telling it to aniki?”

She looked to the ground and sighed, “I have, multiple times even, yet he refuses to accept it. I was hoping that you could talk him out of it.”

  
“What, why? I just can’t go to him and say “Hey, Kaori doesn’t wanna marry you, so like, can you not?” or something.”

“I am aware of that.” she looked away into the dark alleyway. “I was gonna tell you that if he married me, he would die.” she looked back to Gou, both of her irises glowed red with black sclera surrounding them: kakugan. Gou stumbled as he took a step back. She’s a ghoul. “Do you see now? I  **can’t** marry Hojo Rin.”

Gou furiously nodded his head, stunned silent by the revelation. A round of claps sounded from the “empty” and darkened alleyway. The sudden noise made both of them look at the direction of the source, as Kaori’s rinkaku kagune manifested behind her. 

A voice from the alleyway spoke with a deep, but with a sweet tone, like molasses. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon, Bakeneko.” Kaori winced at the usage of her alias while she wasn’t wearing a mask. A pair of kakugan lit up in the darkness. Kaori pointed the tips of her kagune, which had split into two tail-like appendages, to face the mysterious ghoul. “Oh, and you brought dinner too.” 

Gou might only have a slight knowledge of ghouls, but he knew very well that the ‘dinner’ comment was made in reference to him. The realization made him back away slowly from the confrontation. The moment the mysterious ghoul noticed what Gou was planning, his gaze darted at him; the only thing in Gou’s mind now was to run. But his plan was seen through and a jagged rinkaku grabbed him around the waist, hoisting him in the air and dropping him down in the alley. He wasn’t knocked out by the drop, fortunately or unfortunately, despite how much the pain was disrupting his thinking capacity, he figured out that it couldn’t have been Kaori, who did it.

“You know, Bakeneko, next time try getting me a dinner who can’t run away. I don’t like my prey squirming around as I eat them.” he jested, before jabbing Gou through the right side of his torso, a loud yelp escaping Gou’s throat.

_ “I didn’t bring him here for you to  _ **_eat.”_ ** Kaori almost growled, pulling both of the men’s attention to her.

“K.. Kao… ri..?” Gou groaned, furiously trying to ignore the sharp pain on the right side while trying to lift his torso up with his hands, in order to get a better look at what’s going on. She remained unphased, keeping her eyes dead set on the ghoul in front of her. He collapsed as he saw the ghoul walk towards Kaori and the last thing he heard were the sounds of the 2 ghouls clashing. He’s out of energy as he slowly fades in and out of consciousness, until finally passing out cold, in the puddle of his blood.

* * *

It was… cold. That was the first sensation Gou felt as he was starting to come to. Eyes were still glued shut. It was just the cold, dark and the insistent beeping coming from beside him. Out of the pitch black darkness, a swath of warm formed around the back of his waist. The warmth flowed through his body until all of the cold dissipated. His eyes finally opened in a snap. He could feel the right eye twitching on its own accord. No one was around to see that his right eye had been transformed into a kakugan. Against his will, he has been artificially transformed into a ghoul.

A mythical one eyed ghoul.

It was clear that he hasn’t recovered enough energy yet as another swath of drowsiness overcame him like a heavy blanket. Hours later, which had felt like seconds, he awoke to the sunlight peeking through the hospital window. This time, his eyes didn’t seem to move on their own will, thankfully, but the beeping of the heart rate monitor and the oxygen mask were getting on his nerves.

A nurse came inside and noticed quickly that Gou had awoken and called for the doctor. Soon after the two came rushing inside. Gou lazily followed them with his eyes. The doctor asked Gou if he could hear them, to which he slowly nodded.

“Good, you’ve been unconscious for a couple of days now.”

_ “What… happened..?” _ Gou whispered with heavy heaves through the mask.

“I’m not surprised you asked this.” the doctor looked away from him for a moment. “You were found with a hole through your right side, bleeding out in an alleyway, with two dead people near you.”

_ ‘Dead? Did Kaori die?'  _ Gou thought before continuing to listen.

“You were brought in at a critical condition and rushed immediately into an op room. We were afraid you’d fall into a coma, considering the bloodloss. I was mostly surprised that you weren’t dead from losing so much blood, guess you must’ve been lucky.”

_ “Last… night… right… eye… twitched..?” _ he whispered.

“Last night your right eye twitched? Like on its own or?” Gou nodded slightly and the doctor closed in on his eyes with a small flashlight, yet that revealed nothing. “Hmm, we’re gonna need to run more tests on that while you recover here. If everything goes well, you’ll be able to go home soon. For now, rest and try not to move too much, okay?” The doctor and the nurse left the room, leaving Gou by himself once more. Or so he thought, as someone familiar was watching over him.


	2. Home

Gou had recovered enough that the medical personnel told him that he can move back to eating solid foods again after previously being given nutrients through IV. He didn’t exactly have high hopes for the taste of the hospital food, yet it managed to thoroughly disgust him. Everything he tried on the plate tasted either like wet paper or sand. Even if he tried to continue eating, he felt that he’d throw it all up anyway; so he just pushed the tray to the side and turned away from it.

He’s also been bothered by the fact that he keeps seeing someone else's memories in his dreams, and sometimes he sees another ghoul in there, he seemed to have a good relationship with the owner of those memories.

His train of thought was quickly halted when he heard a nurse say that he hasn’t eaten at all. He just curled back into a ball on his bed, back facing the nurse.

“Please put me back on IV nutrients,  _ please, _ I can’t eat  **that** .” he grumbled, clearly hungry, but unable to do anything. The doctor hasn’t said anything about that weird eye twitch either. Rin or his dad haven’t visited ever since he got admitted into the hospital. Everything has been going downhill and he can’t do anything about it. Part of him wishes that he’d just died back then, just like Kaori and that antagonistic ghoul.

“Before we can do that, I will need to talk to your doctor first. He’ll assess your condition and then make the decision.” the nurse said, sounding remorseful.

“Whatever, just do it fast.” he told the nurse, omitting the part that he was starting to get really hungry. Gou forced his eyes shut as he heard the nurse walk away.

_ ‘You can’t keep going on like this forever.’  _ a sweet voice called to him from within. Gou curled up even more, as if it wasn’t bad already, he’s haunted by hallucinations now.

_ ‘You’re like us now…’ _ the sudden Kaori apparition caused him to jolt up in his bed. His kakugan is clearly visible as day from the shock. As a nurse came rushing in, the kakugan faded, keeping itself hidden from humans.

“Are you alright? Is everything okay?” was the first thing he was asked by the nurse.

“Yeah… must’ve been a nightmare.” that's what he hoped for at least.

* * *

On the day of his discharge, once again, his family was busy with work, so he had to call a taxi to take him home. The one good thing about being home alone is that he can inspect what had happened to his body, without distractions. First things first, he rolled up his shirt to take a closer look at the scar running diagonally across the right side of his stomach. Initially it didn’t seem remarkable, but when he rubbed his finger along the line, it didn’t hurt, not even a little twinge. It was as if it had fully healed already. Knowing what he does from Rin and his dad, it shouldn’t be fully healed yet, it should still be itchy a little or something like that.

Letting his shirt fall back down, he continued into the kitchen, where he saw a bag from Shinji and his mom. Apparently they’ve been worried about his absence from the team and got the clearance to go inside from Rin. Well, at least they care more about him than his family. Though his experiences with food at the hospital made him distrusting of the meal in the bag. So for now, he’s gonna pass on that. His next course of action was to take a shower, hospitals don’t have the grandest means for the patients to clean themselves.

Freshly out of the shower, he turned on the TV in his room, just to fill the drenching silence, before going back to finish up drying himself. He set the blow dryer on the side and heard ghouls being mentioned on the TV; all of his attention was turned towards the person who was speaking on the TV. It was like some talk show kinda ordeal. 

He was talking intently about the biology of ghouls and the terms for ghoul specific organs. Like how the kakugan is the ghoul's eye with black sclera and red iris, kagune is the predatory organ and how there are 4 different kinds of it, depending on the location of the kakuhou, which stores RC cells from which the kagune is formed of. He said that humans also have RC cells, but ghouls have the count be roughly ten times higher. And that’s what separates ghouls from humans. It is also the reason why ghouls can only eat humans or other ghouls, they need to restock their RC cell count. That’s why they can’t eat anything else.

“Anything else that they eat, tastes horrible to them, like dry wood chips.“ The man stuck out his tongue mockingly, as Gou’s eyes widened in horror and his mind ran a mile in minute. “And if they do eat said things, they get the inescapable urge to vomit.”

Gou picked up the remote and shut the TV down as he was shaking down to his core. Could he be a ghoul?  _ ‘No! That can’t be true! I’m human… right?’ _ he thought as everything he’s ever known is crumbling down around him. Then he remembered the food that Shinji brought at the kitchen and he deadbolted over there. If he’s a ghoul now, then the food should theoretically make him vomit, right?

There he stood, in front of the paper bag filled with ‘human’ food. He could feel his gut drop at the mere thought of eating that after his experiences with the hospital food. Unwrapping the sandwich; he brought it up to his lips, took a couple of curious sniffs before biting into it. He quickly dropped the sandwich on the table and rushed to the toilet to spit it out. His mind was blank as he tried to force himself to recover. Standing up, he glanced at the mirror, and there it was, in its full glory, a kakugan in his right eye. He couldn’t bring himself to walk closer to the mirror, legs weak and almost ready to collapse again. But he forced himself to shuffle a little closer, using his finger to open his right eye even more. Then it struck him, he saw the exact same thing in Kaori, except she had both of her eyes transform. He slowly sat on the bathroom floor, feeling lost for the very first time.

There is one more test he can do! He remembered his dad and Rin talking about how a ghoul’s skin can’t be pierced due to the RC cells hardening around the metal scalpel or needle, having sounded annoyed by that back then. Pulling himself up and shuffling to the kitchen once more; with a heavy heart, he opened the drawer and pulled out a kitchen knife. He took in a deep breath while lifting up his shirt once more, his kakugan glowing in alarm. Hoisting the knife in the air, he plunged it into his stomach. Or tried to, as the blade broke off the handle when it contacted his skin. That’s it, he’s a ghoul now and there’s nothing he can do about it any longer. With disbelief he dropped the handle on the ground and curled into a fetal position. He’s at his wits end, tears streaming down his face. As the last of his energies seeped away, he was lulled into sleep by a comforting and a warm presence. It was as if they draped a warm blanket over his weakened body. 

He awoke to feeling someone shaking him and calling his name. Blinking a couple of times and letting his eyes focus on the face of the person who woke him up. He recognized that face to be Rin’s, but before he could do anything, he was pulled into a hug.

“Please don’t scare me like that again!” Rin pleaded. Gou was confused on what Rin was talking about, until he eyed the broken knife on the kitchen floor. Last night’s events came rushing in like a flash flood. How he threw up the sandwich, his eye being transformed into a kakugan, and how he attempted to stab himself in the gut, but to no avail.

“Gou?” Rin looked at his little brother again.

“I can’t stay here…” Gou pulled himself away from the hug, as Rin looked at him in bewilderment. “I need to go. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me? What are you saying?”

“I… I’m sorry, aniki, but I need to go!” he can’t tell Rin what happened last night, despite what his heart was telling him. Especially knowing his own reactions to Kaori being a ghoul herself. Picking up his pace, he hurried to his car, picking up his boots on the way. He can’t stay here and risk his family, not with how unstable he might be. He could hear Rin calling to him from their house.

“I’m sorry, Rin.” he whispered to himself as he started up his NSX. He doesn’t know where to go, so he’ll just have to follow his heart for now.


	3. To Kill Or Be Killed

Gou felt his heart ache as he drove further and further away from home. Or so he believed, having not eaten at all after he was discharged from the hospital. The window was open as he drove through the night time Shibukawa. Something or someone led him to this city deep down. An extraordinary scent caused him to slow his car down. It smelled so good, maybe he can finally eat something! Parking it to a nearby coffee shop and locking the car, he started walking towards the source of the scent. The closer he got to the source, the faster he began to move, until he was sprinting through the alleys. His kakugan was glowing in excitement and drooling from his mouth. Turning a corner, he got to the source of his excitement: a ghoul eating a human.

The ghoul turned to look at Gou, “Huh? Who are you?” Looking a little perplexed by the fact that Gou only had a single eye transformed, but the scent was unmistakably that of a ghoul, which is why he didn’t attack Gou immediately. Gou stood there, shocked still, before screaming and falling on his back as he realized what he was staring at.

“Are you hungry too?” the feasting ghoul asked, unphased by Gou’s reaction. “I haven’t been able to eat myself either, but I can give you this.” he tore off a hand from the corpse and tossed it towards Gou. He could only look at the corpse and the hand while hyperventilating.

A sudden motion behind the feasting ghoul alerted both of them to his presence. He was wearing a red fox’s mask. “What did we say about eating near this coffee shop?” 

“I am so sorry, Red Kitsune-san!” he apologized and ran away, leaving the corpse and Gou behind. Red Kitsune’s eyes fell onto Gou now, as he tried to figure out what’s his problem. He saw that Gou was staring at the hand and corpse, so he moved forward and picked up the hand. “You want this?”

“I- I can’t..! I a- I'm a human!” 

“A human you say? Then why don’t you smell like one, hm?” the Kitsune inquired and walked closer, still holding the disembodied hand. Tears were streaming down Gou’s face; the stream from the right side having a red tone due to the tears being infused with RC cells, as Red Kitsune leaned closer to him. “Is that a single kakugan?” he straightened up, keeping his gaze firmly on Gou. “I don’t know what kind of mental trauma you went through, but you’re a ghoul and you need to eat.” Gou moved himself against the wall, refusing to cannibalize his own “kind”.

“I can’t!” 

The Kitsune was getting annoyed at the one eyed ghoul’s behaviour. “You’re starting to piss me off, our species struggles to find food, and here you are, refusing to eat when you have a perfectly fine meal in front of you. What the fuck’s wrong with you?!”

“That’s enough, otouto, you’ve gone far enough.” a new figure appeared from the night’s darkness, resting his hand on his brother’s shoulder. He donned a silver fox’s mask.

“Aniki? What are you doing?” the silver fox masked man lowered himself to Gou’s level. “Take that body to the basement, will you? I’ll deal with this ghoul myself. And please let both of them inside know about his presence too.” he said while pointing at Gou. He then slowly removed his mask, looking Gou into his eyes. His eyes were that of a regular human, hoping that it’ll calm the panicking ghoul down. “I’m Takahashi Ryosuke, may I ask for your name?”

“H-hojo, Hojo Gou…” he responded shakily, he’s seen that face before; it was the same face from his ‘dreams’. A smile adorned Ryosuke’s face, the very same comforting smile.

“Nice to meet you.” he reached his hand out. “Come on, let’s go inside the shop, it’s safer there than inside.”

If he hadn’t seen that face in his dreams, he would’ve refused, but right now, going with them was the only solution. Ryosuke helped him up onto his shaky legs and led him inside from the alleyway door.

* * *

Gou sat on the bar stool in front of the counter, looking down onto the counter.

“You seem to be new here.” the older man spoke to him as he was brewing coffee. Gou found it weird that he did it this late at night, but didn’t question it.

“You could say that… to tell you the truth, everything that’s been happening feels like a fever dream.” the older man quirked a brow with a quiet ‘hmm?’ sounding through his lips. “One moment you know that you’re a human, and the next, everything comes crumbling down.” he looked around to see Ryosuke, Red Kitsune, and another person sitting around a table near him. The Kitsune had removed his mask, Hair pointy, yet definitely bleached, his eyes were electric blue, almost like the opposite of a kakugan. His gaze was pulled away from them by the sound of a coffee cup being set in front of him. He looked at it with suspicion and slight fear. “Um, I don’t think I can drink it…”

“It’s okay, one of the things that both ghouls and humans can enjoy together is coffee.” he gave him a soft smile. “Go ahead, try it.”

Gou picked up the warm cup, looking into the dark liquid before bringing the cup to his lips. His eyes widened in surprise as he felt the taste of the drink. “Wow, it’s good! It might even be better than I can remember it being.” he returned the smile.

“The other things that ghouls can have are water and tobacco.” Ryosuke stood up from the table and walked towards Gou. He stopped next to him, arms folded on his chest. “Water is self explanatory, it’s something all living beings need to survive, but why tobacco and coffee? I’ve yet to solve that mystery.”

“I don’t mind it.” the older man said, with a slight smirk, as he lit a cigarette.

The brown haired boy next to the Kitsune spoke up, Gou assumed that he was the youngest of all of them. “I looked at the car’s licence plate, the one you came in, and I do wonder why did you come here out of all the places?”

“I just kinda ended up here, subconsciously following directions from someone…”

“You’re lucky then, here we help out ghouls who aren’t doing so well and they help us out with managing the business. Who knows what might’ve happened to you if you ended up somewhere more hostile…” he continued. “Ah, can we have your name?”

“Hojo Gou. You?”

“I’m Fujiwara Takumi, the older man behind the bar is my dad, Bunta.”

Ryosuke interjected. “I’m Takahashi Ryosuke and the one next to Takumi is my brother, Keisuke.” Keisuke looked displeased that his name was given out by his brother so easily, but if Ryosuke trusts him, then nothing bad should happen.

“It’s nice to formally meet you guys.” Gou said, a light smile on his face, before taking a sip of his coffee.

“Dad, can you please get him a packet which we give to newcomers?” Bunta grumbled something under his breath, tapped the cigarette on the ashtray and went downstairs.

“Packet?” Gou asked.

“A small packet of cooked human flesh.” Keisuke answered, still looking outside the window. “You’ll need it, because being hungry is hell for any ghoul, you slowly lose your mind and soon you’ll be attacking whomever for food, maybe even someone close to you.” 

“I… understand.” Gou said dejectedly, still uneasy about the thoughts of eating humans.

Ryosuke sat down next to Gou. “I hope I’m not intrusive by asking you, what did you mean by when you said that you are a human?”

Gou finished off his cup before responding. “I meant that, I’ve always been a human, but something happened recently that is starting to challenge my beliefs. It happened after a woman I know revealed to me that she was a ghoul and then we got attacked by another one. Last thing I recall was that I was stabbed through my stomach before waking up on a hospital bed. And from there on, everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve met, it just reinforces that I am a ghoul. Now.”

“A human transformed into a ghoul? That’s news to me.” Ryosuke said before falling into deep thought. _‘That could be the reason behind his one eye changing, but why does he smell strongly like Kaori? She did tell me that she would talk to him before she died months ago, it shouldn't have left such a strong mark on him. Could that woman he talked about be her?’_

“I don’t know what to do anymore…” Gou said softly.

Takumi said reassuringly from his seat. “You can stay here. We have spare rooms, and you can also work here to pay for it.”

“Really?” A smile adorned Gou’s face and Takumi nodded.

Keisuke said to Takumi. “That means I can spend longer making out with you while he works.”

“Keisuke!” Gou could hear the old man snickering from the stairs leading to the basement.

* * *

The sun was beginning to rise as Gou settled in in his new place of residence. The smile that Ryosuke introduced himself to was still fresh in his mind. There was something about it that filled him with warm emotions. Though, there was something sorrowful behind those blue-gray eyes of his. Could the memories he’s been seeing be from Kaori? One question gets answered and ten others follow it.

But one thing is clear, ghouls aren’t monsters, they can be just as kind and sophisticated as humans.

Maybe it is not all that bad; to be a ghoul.


End file.
